1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of citrus crates.
2. Prior Art
Certain citrus, particularly lemons, are prepared for storage and then stored in crates for substantial periods of time of up to six months prior to being shipped for retail sale in order to substantially extend the apparent season for the fruit. Historically, wooden crates have been used for this purpose, such crates being rectangular in shape and usually having solid endwalls and center divider with slatted sides and bottom. While wood generally works well for such purpose, such crates have become increasingly expensive in recent years because of the increasing cost of wood and the amount of hand labor in the fabrication of such crates, and further for the reason that such crates tend to deteriorate with use and abuse, typically requiring replacement thereof after perhaps a couple of seasons of use.
In order to reduce the overall costs of such crates in part by extending the useful life thereof, plastic crates have been designed and fabricated to replace the prior art wooden crate. One such prior art plastic crate is a crate manufactured by Republic Tool and Manufacturing Corp. and distributed by Fruit Growers Supply Co., Sherman Oaks, Calif. This crate, of one piece molded plastic construction, is of substantially the same size as prior art wooden crates. The plastic crate has a bottom surface having a plurality of slots therein, and integral side and end walls comprising vertical slat-like members, each approximately one and one-half inches wide, spaced from the adjacent members by approximately one inch. The corner members of the plastic crate are slightly wider, having a radius at the corner turn itself of perhaps approximately one-half an inch, that radius being terminated at the edge of the corner "slat" at the end of the crate with a substantially smaller convex radius. The interior of the crate is divided into three identifiable regions of approximately equal size, defined by a short divider between each of the regions extending upward from the bottom of the crate by approximately one inch, with hollow inwardly projecting vertical side ribs joining the edges of each of the two dividers and extending upward to a region adjacent the top of the crate to aid in the support of a crate piled there above.
The foregoing prior art plastic crate is a substantial and durable article and in terms of usable life, should achieve one desired aspect of such articles, specifically repeated use before replacement is required. However, such crates have certain characteristics which are substantially less than ideal in use. In particular, the two very short "dividers" allows lemons to be placed directly thereover with additional lemons thereabove, forcing the lower lemons directly against the top of the narrow divider, with the result that the relatively small radius at the top of the dividers frequently seriously bruise the lemons so as to require the discarding of those lemons at the time of fruit preparation for shipment for retail sales. Further, the damaging of one or more lemons in a crate may well cause spoilage of that lemon as well as adjacent lemons over a period of time, so that spoilage of a large part of a crate may well occur. In addition, the short dividers themselves do not provide any substantial resistance to the spreading of the crate sidewalls but instead, such spreading is inhibited at least in part by the vertical ribs hereinbefore described. These ribs themselves, while being radiused, are sufficiently convex to at least on occasion damage the fruit, depending upon how hard the fruit is wedged thereagainst, the firmness of the particular fruit, etc. In that regard the spreading of the sidewalls would appear to be inhibited at least in part by the overall thickness of the material used, particularly the top encircling rim of the crate, resulting in a crate which is heavier than necessary, and more costly than necessary because of the extra plastic used. In that regard, at least many of the surfaces of the crate, including some fruit engaging surfaces, are relatively rough, and while themselves not likely to damage the fruit because of the roughness thereof, will entrap juice and other organic material to which it may be exposed during use, thereby promoting bacterial growth unless carefully cleaned between uses thereof. Finally, while the vertical slats at the end walls of the prior art crate are interconnected with horizontal members between which a person's finger may pass for handling of the crates, such handling is awkward and inconvenient as there is room for only one finger in each opening, with "adjacent" opening being a full two and one-half inches apart. This makes handling cumbersome when empty and even more difficult when the crate is full, as the relatively narrow cross members provide very little area on which the crate must be lifted by typically no more than two fingers of each hand.